Tag: Health

I am usually not one to ask for anything; or to believe somebody when they tell me they are going to give something to me, I simply did not have the kind of life where silly dreams and fantasies turned out to be true. Promises, to me, were something somebody told you to get you to do what they wanted you to do; perform a task, have sex, stay with them, it didn’t matter, it was all the same to me. I typically did as I was asked, I was compliant and submissive.

One year, after reuniting with my ex-husband, he wanted me to lose 90 pounds; he told me I was fat and it was unattractive. Acceptable; I was fat, and, it was unattractive. However, it was painful to hear; and incredibly difficult to lose the weight. I had packed on the pounds through a variety of bad habits, unhealthy eating, too much alcohol, and four years of 27 different medications to control my multiple diagnoses of mental illness.

Finally quitting the prescription meds, since I was more suicidal than ever, I thought I might be able to get control of my weight. It didn’t hurt with Hitler as my coach; I had to weigh myself in front of him every day, and email him a food journal of every calorie I ate. Additionally, I started a rigorous schedule of working out beginning at 4:30 every morning, on my lunch hour at work, and then again after work. All sans gym membership.

Day by day, I saw my weight drop; and in less than a year, I was down 90 pounds and had surpassed his goal for me by 15 pounds. Along the way, he had offered me little incentives to help me.

The biggest one was a “boob job”; not as if I had ever thought of one before, but when he presented it to me, I accepted. He always complained about my “too large” breasts; I had 36DDD, and he preferred an A cup. Even when I weigh 120 pounds, my chest is far larger than it should be for my frame; as a runner (before the unfortunate period of the 11 foot surgeries in 3 years) it was challenging, to say the least.

He offered a reduction if I met a goal of 135 pounds; apparently believing I would never meet the goal. When I exceeded his goal by 15 pounds, I asked him about his promise, his response was a flat, “I was never going to spend that kind of money on you. It was just a way to get you to lose weight.”

So it goes, so it goes.

Never mind the fact that I made at least as much as he did, and I believe about $10,000 more; or the point that he had bought a motorcycle for $8,000, wrecked it one day at a “track day”, bought another the day he was laid up for $8,000, (all cash), and spent 10’s of thousands of dollars day-trading, all lost. I never said a word.

I have always prided myself on the fact that people think I look younger than my 44 years. I have very few wrinkles, if any, around my eyes and mouth to give away my age. While it is true that I have tried to take care of my skin throughout the years, have never smoked, and I do not purposefully lay out in the sun.

As I was having a conversation with someone the other day who was commenting on their own youthful appearance, they attributed their lack of furrows and creases to genetics. So, I contemplated that and thought of my mother and grandmother and their appearance. As my grandmother died in her early 60s while I was 18, I cannot recall her that well, and she looked the same to her for as long as I could recall. My mother on the other hand has had a difficult life and aged very quickly from the time my dad was killed, she also has had a tendency to be a sun worshiper; so I could not necessarily determine my genetic outcome based on her skin.

However, I started to think about my lack of wrinkles as more of a reflection of my flatness. The fact that I rarely smile, almost never laugh, and have very rarely laughed out loud all adds to the fact that I have almost no wrinkles. When people look at me, I rarely have an expression on my face. If I am smiling, it does not reach my eyes, it is superficial at best.

There are those rare times, those moments when I am caught off guard and with that special someone, when I can finally relax and just be myself, when I laugh; then I catch myself and feel self-conscious, and I stop. I am not proud of the fact that I cannot relax and enjoy life, it just is what it is.

While I am proud of the fact that I look more youthful than I am, there are times that I would change that fact to have smile wrinkles around my eyes and mouth, those lines that prove that I have laughed and lived. I would like to have those creases and furrows that have proved that I have cried and worried, that I have loved and been loved.

I would like to have the lines to prove that I am truly not just the flat girl… because, on the inside, I am not.